Programme 2

n a day in the life of Dublin Airport David McWilliams demonstrates how the Irish economy is among the most open in the world, leaving us both vulnerable to the forces of globalisation and with the potential to be positively influenced.

Following last year's enormously popular and award-winning series, In Search of The Pope's Children, David McWilliams returns with a new series based on his latest book: Generation Game.

In Ireland's Generation Game David McWilliams argues that the Irish economy is extremely vulnerable and that the last decade's phenomenal boom is about to end. Filming in China, America, Lithuania, Argentina, Uruguay, England and Ireland he examines whether Ireland has the potential to reinvent itself just as it did a century ago and whether Ireland's seventy million strong Diaspora might be the key to our future economic success.

A day spent in Dublin Airport proves that Ireland's economy is one of the most open in the world. This leaves the economy vulnerable to the forces of globalisation both postive and negative. David McWilliams argues that our propensity to travel can help us succeed in a new modern world.

Starting at dawn, and moving through the day towards midnight, David McWilliams wanders through Dublin Airport in an attempt to capture the pulse of modern Ireland. He meets businessmen travelling to China and the US, migrants moving from eastern Europe to live in Ireland, day-trippers on shopping sprees to New York, property buyers purchasing entire streets in the UK. He follows them to their destinations: Shanghai, Vilnius, Liverpool and New York examining the logic of their travels.

He tracks the country's import and export trade showing that Ireland has become an unsustainable 'Botox Economy' where a large chunk our export revenues are generated from cosmetic aids and treatments which are made by American multinationals in Ireland and then sold to America's neurotic Baby Boomers.

Meeting the people who run Dublin Airport David learns how the Irish are travelling as never before, using the world for their pleasure and the pursuit of increasing wealth. In a world without borders the Irish instinct to travel may become one of our most valuable assets.